Wiltshire Police Welcome New Smoking Law

Anyone lighting up while driving, or as a passenger, with a child under 18 in the car will be breaking the law and could be fined.

Roads Policing Inspector Steve Cox said: "Wiltshire Police is in full support of this new law, which aims to protect children from harm to their health caused by exposure to secondhand smoke in vehicles.

"As the existing smokefree law extends to vehicles, nationally police forces will be taking an educational, advisory and non-confrontational approach when enforcing the new legislation. This would see people being given warnings rather than being issued with fines, which would give time for public awareness of the offences to build.

"This is based on experience of implementing the current smokefree legislation and the Department of Health's proposal that this approach should be adopted for a minimum of three months to help build a high level of compliance.

"Local authorities enforce the existing legislation and police forces are included as enforcement authorities for the new offences. During this period individual offences that justify enforcement action will be reported to local authorities."